Man's Best Friends

SKETCH CHALLENGE NO. 5

About the Challenge

Another busy week in our household (and by “our,” I mean tydesign & me), but it was a “happy” busy. This past Monday, after sufficiently mourning the loss of our previous two pets Rain (in November 2010) and Kozzy (October 2013), we welcomed a new rescue pet into our home.

Meet Kirby, our fantastically awesome 1 year old “miniature” beagle! The “mini” part meaning that he’ll never exceed more than 13 inches in height. I’ve already told most people how tydesign & I came up with the name, but for those of you that don’t know … here’s the story:

Kirby is in reference to Jack Kirby. He was a cartoonist famous for creating Captain America and collaborating with Stan Lee to create the X-men and Fantastic Four. He’s also well-known for developing a drawing style that keenly illustrates explosions and bursts of energy (affectionately called “Kirby Krackle”). When meeting our furbaby for the first time, we saw how much energy he had and equated it to Kirby Krackle. So yes, his full name is Kirby Krackle.

Perfect for this website, yes? Which is why tydesign has decided to make him our “Official Sketch Fury Mascot.”

With that said … Kirby is one of the inspirations for this week’s challenge; Krypto vs. Rocket Raccoon.

Krypto, obviously because he’s Superman’s — or rather, SuperBoy’s, depending on which DC World you know him by — dog. He’s portrayed as a loyal companion to Superman/SuperBoy; often accompanying him in various missions. Krypto has many of the same powers and abilities that Superman possesses, except more proportionate to his smaller size and species. For instance, as a dog Krypto’s sense of smell and hearing were more enhanced than those of Superman; much like an ordinary dog’s senses would be than those of an ordinary human. In his current New 52-version, Krypto possesses normal canine intelligence, though he does seem to have a general understanding of speech and can take initiative on his own.

“I protect place for man. Krypto good boy.” — Krypto

Now Rocket Raccoon … well, actually the inspiration for choosing him is two-fold. One reason is because in our past incarnation (before actually setting up our blog), I had thrown out a Rocket Raccoon challenge. Unfortunately, someone (*cough* — krono0666 — *cough*) didn’t want any part of it and I’m still not exactly sure why. After all, it’s because of krono0666 that we were able to catch the premiere of Guardians of the Galaxy last week. Without going too much into it (since I know Fanboys & Fangirls alike will flock to the theaters today), the movie was simply AWESOME!

And that’s the 2nd reason why I chose Rocket. He is — for lack of better description — quite the character. Rocket is (obviously) a raccoon with raccoon-like qualities: heightened sense of smell and sight as compared to a human. He lives in the Marvel Universe’s Halfworld, where robots create machines and weapons for animals as well as provide them with cybernetic enhancements. To say Rocket has quite the “Napoleon Complex” is just one of the reasons that he is so great; and the fact that he’s an expert marksman with a penchant for large weaponry just makes Rocket more awesome. Having been the chief law officer of Halfworld who protects the colony against various threats, Rocket is also a master military tactician and leader; attributes that help him take charge of the Guardians of the Galaxy when Star-Lord is unavailable.

Plus, I have to say, Rocket Raccoon has got to have some of the best lines in the Guardians movie!

“Ain’t no thing like me, except me!” — Rocket Raccoon

So there you have it. The challenge this week is to sketch either Krypto or Rocket Raccoon. You have Kirby, krono0666 and Guardians of the Galaxy to blame for the first Super-Animal Sketch Fury event.